May 2014

Watkins College of Art, Design & Film presents HELL IS HOT, an exhibition of new work by Fine Art junior Zack Rafuls, at its downtown gallery WAG during the May 3 edition of the First Saturday Art Crawl.

HELL IS HOT, featuring sculpture, painting and printmaking, examines the schematization of individuals’ direct and indirect relationships to one another and to society at large, through the use of metaphorical objects, symbols, and signifiers.

“As individuals in the modern world, we are constantly in contact with societal and cultural systems that dictate and facilitate our day-to-day experiences,” said Rafuls. “These systems exist, as French philosopher Michel Foucault has theorized, as cultural institutions. The work presented in HELL IS HOT serves to analyze the manner in which such systems – specifically sexuality, technology, and consumer culture – engage with each other, while regulating and shaping our individual and collective psyche and behavior.”

About Zack Rafuls

A native of Miami, Florida, Zack Rafuls moved to Tennessee in his early teens, and to Nashville in 2011. His work – primarily sculpture, installation, painting, printmaking and video – has been exhibited at Ground Floor Gallery, the Brownlee O. Currey, Jr. Gallery at Watkins, Track One and Cummins Station. He is currently the chair of the art collective Co. H, a group of artists from various disciplines, and active in OOMFF, Co. H’s series of experimental happenings. Co. H recently exhibited their council show Seven Types of Play at WAG, self-published the second issue of their zine SPIT, and are currently planning a juried showcase of regional video art. Rafuls is an intern at Zeitgeist Gallery and works as a studio assistant in town. When he’s not making things, he’s making noise with his band Onri.

Watkins College of Art, Design & Film offers work from Samantha Carlson, Amy Clutter and Michele Graham in the mixed media show Communion of Selves, opening Thursday, May 8 in the Brownlee O. Currey, Jr. Gallery, with a reception from 6 to 8:30 p.m. This fifth and final installment in the BFA Thesis Exhibition Series from the Watkins Fine Art and Photography departments will be on view through May 18.

Carlson, a candidate for the Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Photography, presents her individually titled show The Psychic Intercourse of Social Reality, with works of photography, video, and printmaking that explore the human imperative for connection and how it is affected by and reflected in the modern world.

Clutter, a BFA in Fine Art degree candidate with an interest in film production design, stagesExtractions of Faraway Nearby, a mixed media show investigating psychological spaces.

Fine Art major Graham incorporates painting, text-based art and folded paper forms into Sixty Four Thousand Five Hundred and Twelve, an investigation of habitual behavior through process, repetition and futility, with focus on the action of the artist and duration.

The group exhibition Communion of Selves and reception are free and the public is invited. Watkins is located at 2298 Rosa L. Parks Boulevard in MetroCenter; free parking is available in the campus lot. For more information, visit Watkins.edu or call 615.383.4848.

Group show: Communion of Selves

Statement: The group show title comes from a conceptual thread that runs through all of our work: the theme of self. In contemporary art, the use of the self as subject matter is oftentimes considered taboo or self-indulgent; however, through this exhibit we assert that while the self refers to individual experience, it also has the capacity to encompass much larger discourse. Our work contends that the self is the most universal.

The following seniors in the Interior Design department will be presenting their thesis project on Thursday, May 8th, beginning at 6pm in room 705.

Whitney Youngblood

Urban Agriculture and the Positive Effects that Urban Farms Have on Metropolitan Environments – discover how an urban farm (just down the street from Watkins) can enhance the neighborhood in a metropolitan area

Lorraine Nwofia

Interior Design of Elementary Schools Within an Inclusive Setting – explore the creation of learning environments supporting the needs of children with and without learning disabilities

Reinalisa Santoyo

Creating an Active Culture Through Mobile Actions – understand the nutritional needs and dynamic design solution for people who live in food deserts

Emily Hill

Circle of Life Child Care Center – experience a new model for the care of children and the elderly in an intergenerational facility

Calendar

May 2014

Watkins College of Art, Design & Film presents HELL IS HOT, an exhibition of new work by Fine Art junior Zack Rafuls, at its downtown gallery WAG during the May 3 edition of the First Saturday Art Crawl.

HELL IS HOT, featuring sculpture, painting and printmaking, examines the schematization of individuals’ direct and indirect relationships to one another and to society at large, through the use of metaphorical objects, symbols, and signifiers.

“As individuals in the modern world, we are constantly in contact with societal and cultural systems that dictate and facilitate our day-to-day experiences,” said Rafuls. “These systems exist, as French philosopher Michel Foucault has theorized, as cultural institutions. The work presented in HELL IS HOT serves to analyze the manner in which such systems – specifically sexuality, technology, and consumer culture – engage with each other, while regulating and shaping our individual and collective psyche and behavior.”

About Zack Rafuls

A native of Miami, Florida, Zack Rafuls moved to Tennessee in his early teens, and to Nashville in 2011. His work – primarily sculpture, installation, painting, printmaking and video – has been exhibited at Ground Floor Gallery, the Brownlee O. Currey, Jr. Gallery at Watkins, Track One and Cummins Station. He is currently the chair of the art collective Co. H, a group of artists from various disciplines, and active in OOMFF, Co. H’s series of experimental happenings. Co. H recently exhibited their council show Seven Types of Play at WAG, self-published the second issue of their zine SPIT, and are currently planning a juried showcase of regional video art. Rafuls is an intern at Zeitgeist Gallery and works as a studio assistant in town. When he’s not making things, he’s making noise with his band Onri.

Watkins College of Art, Design & Film offers work from Samantha Carlson, Amy Clutter and Michele Graham in the mixed media show Communion of Selves, opening Thursday, May 8 in the Brownlee O. Currey, Jr. Gallery, with a reception from 6 to 8:30 p.m. This fifth and final installment in the BFA Thesis Exhibition Series from the Watkins Fine Art and Photography departments will be on view through May 18.

Carlson, a candidate for the Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Photography, presents her individually titled show The Psychic Intercourse of Social Reality, with works of photography, video, and printmaking that explore the human imperative for connection and how it is affected by and reflected in the modern world.

Clutter, a BFA in Fine Art degree candidate with an interest in film production design, stagesExtractions of Faraway Nearby, a mixed media show investigating psychological spaces.

Fine Art major Graham incorporates painting, text-based art and folded paper forms into Sixty Four Thousand Five Hundred and Twelve, an investigation of habitual behavior through process, repetition and futility, with focus on the action of the artist and duration.

The group exhibition Communion of Selves and reception are free and the public is invited. Watkins is located at 2298 Rosa L. Parks Boulevard in MetroCenter; free parking is available in the campus lot. For more information, visit Watkins.edu or call 615.383.4848.

Group show: Communion of Selves

Statement: The group show title comes from a conceptual thread that runs through all of our work: the theme of self. In contemporary art, the use of the self as subject matter is oftentimes considered taboo or self-indulgent; however, through this exhibit we assert that while the self refers to individual experience, it also has the capacity to encompass much larger discourse. Our work contends that the self is the most universal.

The following seniors in the Interior Design department will be presenting their thesis project on Thursday, May 8th, beginning at 6pm in room 705.

Whitney Youngblood

Urban Agriculture and the Positive Effects that Urban Farms Have on Metropolitan Environments – discover how an urban farm (just down the street from Watkins) can enhance the neighborhood in a metropolitan area

Lorraine Nwofia

Interior Design of Elementary Schools Within an Inclusive Setting – explore the creation of learning environments supporting the needs of children with and without learning disabilities

Reinalisa Santoyo

Creating an Active Culture Through Mobile Actions – understand the nutritional needs and dynamic design solution for people who live in food deserts

Emily Hill

Circle of Life Child Care Center – experience a new model for the care of children and the elderly in an intergenerational facility